One of the last breaking news announced that Israeli based company NETEX has received a US patent which exposed the big search engine companies: Google and Yahoo to infringement of Netex patent.
The first claim of the patent application originally filed was promising, disclosing an automatic process of obtaining corrected URL address from keywords typed by a user. Such claim may possibly include the functionality of “I am feeling lucky button” of Google.
However, when reviewing the allowed claims of the patent, the results are much less exciting. The scope of the first claim is narrowed to typing only at the “URL entry field” and the automatic correction includes the step of identifying user geographic location and obtaining the respective URL address relating to user location. Such a claim is limited only to browsers functionality and only to a website which has different pages suitable to different geographical locations.
The narrowing of the claim is clearly seen by comparing the application first claim and the granted potent first claim.
A method of WWW page retrieval from a web site, comprising: receiving information associated with content of a web site, wherein said received information is not a WWW address and comprises characters typed for entry by a user into a URL entry field in a browser operable on an electronic device having web browsing capabilities in which a standard URL address would be entered; said information being received by a software not associated with said web site; determining a geographical location of the user; providing a page address of a page of said web site, responsive to said information and said determined geographical location, by said software; sending the page address to the browser for retrieving said page responsive to said page address; and thereby causing said page to be directly displayed to the user using the browser, without any additional user intervention beyond the entry of said information.